By Ayo Yusuf
A major player in the ongoing probe of the Central Bank of Nigeria during Godwin Emefiele’s nine-year tenure as head of the bank, Benjamin Fakunle, has been arrested at a lavish retirement party in Abuja.
Mr. Fakunle was also alleged to be on the verge of fleeing the country.
The ex apex banker who recently retired as the finance director of the Central Bank is currently detained by the Department of State Service (DSS) while being interrogated by Mr. Jim Obazee, the Special Investigator appointed by President Bola Tinubu to investigate the CBN and allied concerns.
TheNewDiplomat gathered that the investigator is interested in finding out Mr. Fakunle’s role in the recently published seven-year audited accounts of the CBN which reportedly contravened all stipulated accounting and reporting guidelines.
Mr. Fakunle who was arrested at his lavish retirement party in Abuja is among senior officials of the apex bank who have been arrested and interrogated by Mr. Obazee who is said to be close to completing his probe.
Reports say Mr. Fakunle was allegedly complicit in the preparation of the published accounts of the bank which was done without recourse to the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).
He would also be required to explain why the sum of N401 million was paid for the document as against extant rules of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria.
President Tinubu had in late July, appointed Jim Obazee to lead a special panel to investigate the CBN following the arrest and prosecution of former CBN Governor, Emefiele over alleged financial infractions.
Mr. Obazee recently questioned deputy governors of the CBN, as well as other senior officials of the bank, as part of the ongoing audit.
Mr. Fakunle is alleged to own tens of local, foreign and personal bank accounts, and may be the owner of some 28 choice properties in Abuja alone. He was reportedly arrested in one of his mansions.
He was said to have earlier been invited by the Special Investigator’s panel for questioning, but allegedly refused to cooperate during interrogation, despite all the evidence he was confronted with about his complicity in the heist of the CBN.
It was alleged that Fakunle as the apex bank’s finance director, aided the embattled CBN governor, Emefiele and his deputies, including the acting CBN governor, Folashodun Shonubi, to perpetrate monumental frauds at the apex bank as well as in the looting of the nation’s treasury.
Security sources claim that Mr. Fakunle had already planned to flee Nigeria immediately after his lavish retirement party.
His arrest is expected to advance the search for truth over what actually transpired in the CBN under Emefiele’s watch.
Already the Special panel had traced a whopping N8 trillion looted from the CBN coffers to several private bank accounts. Many bank chiefs have already been grilled over their roles in these various fraudulent transactions.
Mr. Obazee’s panel had recommended in its preliminary report the immediate withdrawal of the seven-year CBN audited annual financial report following the discovery of some discrepancies and irregularities in the apex bank’s financial accounts.
The CBN had in August released its financial reports for years 2016 to 2022 amid the ongoing probe of the apex bank by President Tinubu’s Special Investigator.
